Wednesday, February 3, 2016

A Room of My Own

I will confess, I’ve never
considered myself to be a feminist.Probably my reluctance to embrace the term has something to do with the
fact that most of the men and boys with whom I’ve ended up associating for any
length of time—brothers, teachers, friends, coworkers, and now students—have
treated me with respect.My life doesn’t
need feminism.

This is not to say that I’m
ungrateful for the women and men who made it easier for me to go to college,
get an office job, and pursue a PhD: I am
grateful.But oftentimes expression of
gratitude towards early feminists really amount to criticisms of the current
situation; and I see no need to go through life reminding the gentlemen around
me that they (by which I would mean, I suppose, their grandfathers and on back)
were not always so polite.

Lately, however, I’ve begun to
actively dislike the idea of feminism, or at least the idea of feminism as it’s
usually understood: feminism as a call to erase from the lives of women
everything that makes their experience different from that of a man.

“But,” says my interlocutor, “that’s
not what feminism means at all.Feminism
is about equality—erasing the
differences that hurt women, or allow men to take advantage of them.”

And indeed, that’s what feminism
meant at one point in history (the late nineteenth and early twentieth century,
I believe).Among my friends who own the
title “Feminist,” that’s what feminism still means today: leveling the
workplace playing field, making dating and marriage fair, correcting false
assumptions about femininity, etc., etc.But I don’t think that’s what most of America means by “feminism”
today.Certainly that is not how opinion
leaders and media outlets use the term.The write as if feminism means the erasure of the feminine.

This is nothing new, of course;
whole books have been written on the topic (not to mention plenty of editorials
and other blog posts).But over the last
few years the idea that women must be the same as men—not just equal to but the same as—has been gaining traction.As evidence, I submit to you three recent stories.

First, there is Sheryl
Sandberg’s call to end the chore wage gap.Yes, apparently boys get more money for their chores than girls.And apparently, boys and girls do different
chores.Fact #1 would certainly bother
me, assuming that there are no ameliorating circumstances; I can, however,
imagine many which would not be inconsistent with the evidence Sandberg
cites.Self-reporting errors? boys doing
more or harder work by choice? girls receiving rewards in-kind (can anyone say,
“Honey, how ’bout let’s get your nails done?”).

Let
it be known that I profoundly disliked

nail
polish as a child.I still do.

Spending the afternoon with my watercolors, now …

P.S. Is it just me, or does that picture sing

"Cruella De-evil?"

But Fact #2, that boys are doing
different chores than girls, troubles me not a wit.Oh, they get to weed-whack and mow the back
forty, before repairing the drywall they kicked in last week?Be my guest.Yes, I would actually rather stay in the kitchen with the dishes, and
then fold the laundry.Now obviously,
this disparity in chores can become problematic when the boys are always given
less work, or when either the gentlemen or the ladies leave the house without
knowing the basics of survival.But
there’s a difference between, on the one hand, being fair to one’s children and
doing Home Ec right and, on the other hand, making sure that Buddy and Sissy
always, but always spend the exact
same amount of time doing the exact same thing.And it’s especially silly to expect Buddy and Sissy to do the same
chores all the time when Buddy and Sissy don’t want that.

Now,
if your Buddy really does like ironing, he may

have
a future in fashion (or at least dry cleaning).

And
Sissy’s fondness for changing oil may signal her future

in
the world of auto mechanics.But for

the
love of mud don’t be surprised if

their
preferences are more … erm … traditional.

Exhibit #2 in this mug line of The
Murderers of True, Good, and Beautiful Feminism is the
recent call by some generals for women to register for the draft.I know full well this is a response—logical
or piqued, who can say—to opening up full combat roles to women.So perhaps it is only fair to say that those
women and men who were eager for women in combat started the fire. But frankly, I don’t care who started it.It’s foolish to put women in combat, and it’s
foolish to draft women.

Let’s speak in broad but true
generalities, and words that a five-year-old can understand.Women make babies, both accidentally and on
purpose.Women give great pleasure to
men.Women are physically weaker than
men.And, finally, men are mentally
weaker around women: bad men are more likely to hurt them than to hurt other
men, and good men more likely to rush to their protection than to fly to the
aid of their fellow bros.

I don’t think I need to spell out
the implications of these premises.Once
they’re accepted, it becomes clear why having women in combat is a bad idea.

And a final remark on this whole draft
thing, for those of us who are prolife and/or opposed to contraception, for
reasons of religion, lifestyle, or health: What happens if you, the woman, are
drafted when you already are taking care of three kids?What happens if you, the woman, are drafted
while pregnant?What happens if you, the
woman, spend leave with your husband and are suddenly “at risk for getting
pregnant?”What sort of policies will be
concocted to deal with these inevitabilities?For if there is a female draft, they will be inevitabilities.

The striking thing about this
article is not the author’s failure to admit that there are some legitimate
concerns about even modern birth control.The striking thing is not the author’s ignorance of the stability of the
luteal phrase in all women.The striking
thing is not the author’s blitheness about suppressing rather than resolving
medical issues like endometriosis.And
the striking thing is certainly not the author’s desire to avoid pain and
inconvenience.

Actually,
all of those are striking, except

for
the last. But that’s another post—and

another
kind of blog.We don’t go there here.

No, the striking thing is the list
of reasons the author gives for seeking to avoid a monthly reminder of one’s
femininity.

A Midol slogan famously said,
“Because your period’s more than a pain.” This is true not only for women like
me who just don’t want the burden of buying tampons and avoiding wearing white.
There are shift workers who cannot escape to the restroom, women in
male-dominated jobs where they feel they have to hide their feminine-hygiene
products to prevent further alienation, sex workers for whom bleeding is more
than a hassle, and women with young children or otherwise unreliable sleep
schedules who don’t need the stress of making sure they take a birth-control pill
at the same time every day.

Think about those first three
examples for a moment.Shift workers who
can’t go to the restroom.Women who have
to act like the men they’re working with.Sex workers.Isn’t it clear that
in each case we’re talking about a situation that is profoundly wrong in the
first place?If you can’t go to the
bathroom, act as if you are the sex you are, or are selling your body—isn’t it
clear that there is something wrong with the job?And if there’s something wrong with the job,
why aren’t we fixing the job?Why do we
need to fix the woman?

This is the problem with modern
feminism.It purports to be about fixing
society.Let’s fix it so that girls can
do the same chores as boys.So that
women can do the same dirty work as men.So that we can stand hardships that, frankly, neither men nor women
should have to stand.But when they say
“Let’s fix it” what they really mean is “Let’s fix them.”

Dear world: I may be weak, and
possibly even hormonal, but I’m not broken.And I certainly don’t want to be “fixed.”In any sense of that euphemistic word.

I’ll give the last lines to Henry
Higgins, God bless him.At least he was
frank about what he wanted.